container garden: brick planter?

[coyotesweat]

Hi y'all!

I have a small water garden (a large plastic Walmart planter, about 22 gallons), which currently contains a papyrus plant and a water lily, plus some underwater plants and 7 rosey red minnows. (brought some of these guys inside to cycle my 30 [acronym:1e5004da9d="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:1e5004da9d] tank, and they're back now and doing fine.) They've been living there since spring... with no filtration, little food in the summer, but lots of real mosquito larvae. Now that it's fall, I've been feeding them once a day on betta food, which they love. They've been in there in outdoor temps ranging from 108 degrees to 35 degrees, and have grown quite large. Some are almost 3 inches now.

Oh, yeah, and I live in Austin, Texas, where we don't really get any hard freezes... can be very hot in summer, but rarely colder than 32 degrees a few nights a year.

My plans were to build a pond in the back yard, but my new dog this year likes to dig, and also to eat container garden plants. Had 2 container gardens back there... she pulled all the plants out & shredded them. Moved the surviving container to the front. So, until I have money to either build a fence to fence off the future pond, or to buy a kennel for her to keep her separate from it, no pond til spring.

In the front yard is a large, built-in brick planter/divider. It was filled with gravel & soil. i dug it down about 18 inches, and calculated that if filled with water, it would probably hold about 120 gallons of water.

Do you think it would work to line it with pond liner and make an above-ground container water garden for some plants and the minnows? No outlet in front, so no filtration, but I figure if the minnows are doing so well in a 20 [acronym:1e5004da9d="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:1e5004da9d] pot with no filtration, they might do ok in a bigger area as well. I'll have to use shade tolerant plants, as it's technically under the porch roof, but the front of it does get some sun.

Anybody done this sort of thing?

If not, I'm tempted to have a go at it and I'll let you know...

Coyote